A MAN was behind bars last night more than ten years after molesting a young girl who finally reported him after watching a TV drama involving child abuse.

After the episode last year, the girl, now 19, broke down and confided in her boyfriend before telling the police.

Yesterday, a jury at Newcastle Crown Court found Richard Bond guilty of two charges of indecency with a child, one of indecent assault and one of attempted rape dating back to 1991.

He was remanded in custody by Judge Michael Cartlidge, who warned him a prison sentence was inevitable.

The case was adjourned for four weeks for reports to be prepared on what future risk he might pose to children.

After the majority verdicts, it emerged that Bond had an unrelated previous conviction for gross indecency following an incident in 1999 when he showed a seven-year-old girl pornographic magazines in his garage.

For that offence, he was sentenced to 12 months probation and ordered to sign the sex offenders register for five years.

Bond, a resident of Penshaw, on the outskirts of Sunderland, at the time of the attacks on the 1991 victim, has been living in Hull.

During a two-day trial at Newcastle Crown Court earlier this week, the jury was told that the two-year campaign of abuse started when the girl was aged just eight. Bond initially exposed himself to the girl but the abuse culminated in an attempt to rape her.

Anne Richardson, prosecuting, had told the jury that the victim had been watching the TV programme last year when she broke down and told her boyfriend what had happened to her a decade earlier.

Bond maintained that none of the abuse had ever taken place.